DIY Solar Panel Lift/Roof Hoist

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Ever wrestle a full size solar panel up onto the roof of your house?
I carried a couple up a ladder but decided that was not safe, either for me or the panel. I looked into pre-made roof hoist and found they cost from $500 up to $2000 or more. Most were made for heavier items like shingles, but I only needed something to raise a 45 pound solar panel,
I had some old 2x4 lumber that I salvaged out of my old patio enclosure. The boards were too short to reach the roof, but I joined two boards together for about a 12 foot length. Then I needed some sort of wheel and track system for the load platform to ride up and down on. I thought about some small wheels rolling against the wood, but it was a little too rough and warped for that.
Then I found these nifty strut channel trolley wheels that fit into regular uni-strut channel:
www.mcmaster.com/products/tro...
So 4 trolley wheels and 4 lengths of 6 foot aluminum channel and I had the track system installed.
I bolted the trolley wheels onto a scrap of exterior plywood, added bottom and back supports and the cargo platform was done. Then I added a rope pulley top and bottom along with a rope cleat near the bottom to tie off the rope. Stringing the rope from the top to bottom to top and down gave a 2 to 1 mechanical advantage and is about right for the weight of a panel.
The hoist works quite well for what I needed it for. It cost under $200 but all the purchased items can be re-used for other projects if needed. I probably could have used a pair of 10' steel uni-strut sections with some cross bracing and that would have cost about half the price.
I didn't make a drawing for this, just pieced together scraps of material I had around along with the lengths of Unistrut, the trolley wheels and the rope pulley from a local hardware store. Here's a photo album with some additional information:
photos.app.goo.gl/GGRAHwY6yFP...
Hope you find this interesting. Thanks for watching!

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Опубликовано:

30 ноя 2014

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Комментарии : 42

@navyretired230 2 года назад

BEST Idea I have ever seen!!!! Thank You

@The4Crawler 2 года назад

Wow, thanks! I have one more panel I need to use hoist with.

@gregdoswalt 3 года назад

Thank you for sharing. This is a great idea, simple to reproduce and a clear video of how it was made.

@The4Crawler 3 года назад

Glad it was helpful! Still use this from time to time. I may be redesigning it to lessen the weight by using only Unistrut.

@oldtimeengineer26 7 лет назад

boy wished I had watched this before all that work I did. Thanks for letting me know about your video

@The4Crawler 7 лет назад

My first solar panels were a pair of Harbor Freight 15W panels and those you could easily carry both in one hand. Then I went to a pair of 60W panels and those were easy enough to carry up a ladder with one hand. It was a bit of a shock when I first tried to lift a 270W 60-cell panel up onto the roof. I think it's more the size/shape than the weight that makes them hard to handle alone. After doing a few of those, I decided to build my hoist. Nice thing is after you are finished with it, you can tear it down for the unistrut to use for something else.

@RinoaL 8 лет назад

wow thats really nice......

@Youtuberkt Год назад

Thanks for sharing

@The4Crawler Год назад

Thanks for watching!

@HinMLee 8 лет назад

Excellent. I was thinking that I would need to hire someone to carry these up to the roof but I can see them getting hurt or dropping a panel.

@The4Crawler 8 лет назад

Thanks. For sure, carrying a full size (60 or 72 cell) panel up on a ladder is no fun. I did 3 of them up onto my patio roof and that was my limit. It's only about 8' high and I could push the panels up the ladder and onto the roof w/o too much trouble. A gust of wind at the wrong time or a missed step and $200 of panel could hit the ground or fall on me, neither of which would end in a good result. Really easy to make the hoist and the cost was less than a single panel. So much nicer to grab the panel off the hoist at a comfortable height (no bending down over the edge of the roof) and carry it to where it's going to be installed.

@christiangeiselmann 8 лет назад

For an electrical winch, do not put it at top of your ladder but on the buttom. Commercial lifts are made that way, too.

@The4Crawler 8 лет назад

+Christian Geiselmann Good tip. If I ever add an electric winch to mine, I'll keep that in mind.

@christiangeiselmann 8 лет назад

+R Brown (4Crawler) ... bottom, I wanted to say. - I am working currently with a 23 metres commercial elevator on a roof rebuild project, that's why I started to be interested in the topic. Congratulations for your fine diy elevator!

@The4Crawler 8 лет назад

+Christian Geiselmann That sounds like a proper elevator indeed. Mine is good for a single solar panel, so maybe 20kg total weight. I could up that with another set of pulleys to give more mechanical advantage or adding a small hand cranked or electric winch.

@jaminoes_ 2 года назад

I would like to see how to pickup these 50 lbs panels once they reach the top

@The4Crawler 2 года назад

I didn't get any shots of that, but it's just like picking them up on the ground. I just stand behind the panel and slide if off the side of the lift until one corner is on the roof. Then just tip it up vertical and pick it up by grabbing each side. No leaning over the edge of the roof required.

@jaminoes_ 2 года назад

@@The4Crawler Thanks for the reply. Maybe my 250 W panels are just too heavy for me alone and feels very unsafe. I will look for help. Thanks for the video!

@fentonwheelock7896 Год назад

By any chance do you have a drawing of this incredible invention?

@The4Crawler Год назад

Unfortunately, I didn't make a drawing for this. I just pieced together scraps of material I had around along with the lengths of Unistrut, the trolley wheels (link in the video description) and the rope pulley from a local hardware store.

@The4Crawler Год назад

Here's a photo album with some additional information: photos.app.goo.gl/GGRAHwY6yFPRVCCk9

@GreenHydrogen Год назад

Hey, thanks! I shared 3 pictures of my creation inspired by yours. Haha you were right, my panel lift is heavy! next time I will do aluminum as well. A slight difference is that mine works as a ladder on one side and as a lift one the other.

@The4Crawler Год назад

@@GreenHydrogen That looks great, the ladder idea is awesome. Yes, these things can get heavy. That's why I'm looking to remove the wood I added to mine, it's not really required and just makes it harder to move around.

@kudapedzisai5351 4 года назад

i need a portable winch to tilt solar panels to a certain angle , hand operated one

@The4Crawler 4 года назад

Shouldn't be too hard to find something like that, here's one on Amazon: amzn.to/2mJmhHS I use a simple chain and turnbuckle setup to tilt mine: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-StWtXLuWMys.html

@skonasa 5 лет назад

Where did you buy the trolleys for the Unistrut

@The4Crawler 5 лет назад

I think I got them from McMaster-Carr. Search for Strut Channel Trolleys

@SolarizeYourLife 6 лет назад

I didn't know unistrip made aluminum struts, I wish Home Depot had them...

@The4Crawler 6 лет назад

I imagine any electrical distributor would have it. I ordered these from Mcmaster-Carr. In hind sight, I think the steel Unistrut on it's own would be strong enough to do away with the wooden frame. Might actually be lighter, too. Although you might need to weld sections of the steel Unistrut together if you needed more than 10 ft. length in order to work with trolley wheels.

@pauls0416 8 лет назад

That is a really cool little invention! It's fantastic. Good job. The only thing is, I couldn't imagine putting in all of that effort (and materials) to build it when I'm only going to use it one time. I mean, there's always the possibility that I could add more panels at some point but then I would have that thing sitting in my garage taking up space. A portable version of what you built would be great for a solar installer to have :)

@The4Crawler 8 лет назад

Not a lot of either actually. The wood was all scrap lumber off my old patio enclosure, so that was no cost. And in fact the size of the rack was dictated by how long two of those scrap pieces was, that way I didn't need to cut them shorter. The Unistrut and rollers can be easily unscrewed and used for other purposes. I want to build a light hoisting trolley system in my shop to run along under the roof rafters. I'll be re-using the hoist material for that project once I'm certain I'll not be needing the panel hoist again. I've used it to raise up two solar panels, all the racking and also to lower all sorts of random material I had on the roof for other projects like concrete and wood blocks, etc. So it was not used to just lift one panel . If I were to make it again, I would probably use 10' sections of steel Unistrut and then shorter sections bolted on for cross bracing. That would make it quite portable for someone with a work truck.

@user-vv3zs6en8p 5 лет назад

Just don’t drop the panels.

@The4Crawler 5 лет назад

Yes, you got that right. After lifting a few up to the roof by hand up a ladder, it seemed to be a big risk doing it that way. So this hoist has a sturdy shelf on the bottom them a lever at the top that flips down over the top of the panel to keep it from tipping forward and falling. Then it can be raised to a comfortable level to slide it off the hoist and onto the roof from above.

@332jatc 8 лет назад

apparently that that's sad like they're really that's that's the solar pillar put up wasn't that heavy but why didn't he just go up on top of the roof tie the thing together at this pull it up didn't have to make a choice to are your panels heavier than his why couldn't you do it like that yourself you don't need to make something that kind of a Contraption unless you can't lift the paddle yourself so how did you get the pedal off of the dolly if you can lift it you can pull it up with a rope just going to type it correctly you don't need to make at least listen to heavy if you get a second buddy all he had to do was call me I want to listen to him and get a look at the roof and took it up he didn't need to go up the latter stupidly like that if he was smart he would have put it between two letters and pull it up just like your pulley system